Lights, Camera, Christmas Presents for Free!

It's December 18th. If you haven't started your Christmas shopping, you're just like me. Maybe you're lazy, maybe you having a problem with procrastination, or maybe like most of the people in the United States, you're broke. Well, don't worry, I've found over 1,220,000 ways to help ("christmas shopping for the poor" returned 1,220,000 results on Google). Now, I've sifted through a few of these ideas and have found all of the traditional suggestions. From making your own hot chocolate or cake mix, to baking cookies and making picture collages and multimedia projects.

Let's be honest. If you're reading this you're probably somewhat tech savvy. You probably have a DVD-burner and a TON of electronic media such as music, pictures and videos, some of which, hopefully, includes your family and friends. Now what is one of the most valuable things that you have an use every single day? You're TIME!

So what can we do with $0, some old JPEGs & MPEGs and your favorite MP3's? Well, if you're really not creative, you can always plug them into some program that will automatically mix them up for you (try Wondershare). Or, you could actually take the time to download some professional software like Sony's Vegas Video or anything by Avid, Adobe, you get the picture. Take all of that media you have and make a STORY. I know, it's tempting to find pictures and stuff them all in chronological order and make a slideshow with your familly's "
song." Well, take it to the next level.

How can I take it to the next level, you ask? Well, it's simple. Have you ever watching the History Channel? Sure you have, you've seen those documentaries. You know how every single one of your favorite snack foods is made and have seen each and every one of them extruded from a gigantic machine. But have you ever watched a show about history on the History Channel? What do they all have in common? They are all a series of images and very short video clips which have been mashed together. The images always have a motion path though. The images that you see on The History Channel are never static, they are always moving across the screen and revealing something.

What else do you see when you watch something on the History channel? Well it's not what you see, it's what you hear. Narration is a huge part of telling a story. Although it may be great to take three minutes worth of pictures of you and your friends and put it to your favorite song, you should make something about your family stand out. Tell a story. Use sound effects, use video clips from the World Wide Web. Take historic events that happened throughout your loved ones lives and include media from those events in your story.

Make a video that you could actually play on the Documentary Channel. Now, I'm not saying you need to be Steven Spielberg to pull this off. You certainly don't need a masters degree in cinema either. You just need enough creativity to show your family that you cared enough to take the time to tell the story about someone you love. And, trust me, having done this for many gifts to my parents, it is always the best of the year. What does it cost? Well, of course whatever equipment you need to aquire the media. If you have a bunch of older photographs, I would recommend investing in a very high resolution flatbed scanner to digitize all of those images. As far as a video camera goes, I would hold off on purchasing a HD camcorder and settle for a point-and-shoot digital camera with HD video capability. The price of HD camcorders will sharply fall once the technology becomes standard and 4:3 aspect ratio becomes a thing of the past.

So grab all of your gear, get your story, write a script and make a special holiday for someone you really love. I'll upload a few examples on my Youtube page at http://www.youtube.com/mindtron later this week to show you what I come up with. What can you expect to spend on this project? Well, it would be nice to produce a DVD with a label. So, assuming you already have the software or are savvy enough to find some free or trial ware online, this project should cost you no more than $5. The perceived value will be higher than a diamond bracelet from Tiffany's...

From Asparagus to Zucchini: How your grocery shopping affects the economy

The generation gap is an interesting thing today. Especially in our economic slump. Those of you my age that have any sense and are already working on your retirement have seen your 401(k) balance take a nose dive. Imagine being 60-some odd years old and having a pension based solely on GM stock. "When GM goes down..."

So after a conversation on the phone with my parents I gained a better understanding of things. I thought I was the only guy in town that was having trouble paying his rent on time. I thought I was the only one being pressured to pay his cellphone bill on time. I thought I was the only guy at the bar that couldn't afford his usual top shelf drink. After talking with lots of people about the taboo subject of money, I have come to learn that EVERYONE is somehow affected by this recession.

For example, the Starbucks in the building where I work was forced to raise their prices. Starbucks announced the closing of hundreds of their stores months ago. A Venti Caramel Macchiato can cost up to $5 including tax in most markets. That's a $5 cup of coffee! I know bars that offer martini specials that match that! What is it with our affinity with these frothy beverages? I'm a prime example, here I am, hardly able to pay the bills, sitting in Dunn Brothers drinking a $3.50 latte. Is it the comfort? The sense of false security? Or is it, really, as Starbucks calls it, the comfort of the third place? Regardless of how poor the economy is, or how many DTSB's (Drive-Thru Starbucks as my friend calls them) get closed, Americans will never lose their love affair with socially iconic corporate products such as these. In fact, the Motley Fool has listed Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) as their Best Stock for 2009!

So here we are, in an economy that sucks. What got us here? Well, leave it to Fox News and the Wall Street Journal to argue over that. I think WE got ourselves here and we are ALL guilty of it. Example: micro-conspicuous consumption. Do you remember that economics class you took in college where you learned about conspicuous consumption and keeping up with the Joneses? Well, we're not buying $60,000 SUV's like we did five years ago, but now we're doing it on a much more dangerous small scale. How many people do you know that shop at Whole Foods that can barely make their mortgage payment? Well, none of course, because your neighbor doesn't want you to know that they're struggling. Human nature is to make it appear you're up when you're really down. Now are your neighbors loading their $300 weekly organic grocery bill onto their American Express and paying it off every month? Are they writing a check at the end of the aisle or paying with cash? You can probably bet not, all of that baby asparagus, Ahi tuna and organic wheat germ cereal is loaded onto their 12.99% APR Visa card.

Why though? Why do we do this to ourselves? Is there something wrong with getting your groceries at Super Target or Kroger? Is there something wrong with the discount grocery store down the street? No, of course not, it's all the same produce that comes from the same farms at gets put in the same box. A box of Ritz Crackers will always taste the same whether you buy it at Fresh Market, Kroger or Food Lion.

Now, after having watched Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices, I wouldn't encourage anyone to shop their. Walmart's affect on the economy is horrible. But, when you think about this micro-conspicuous consumption, it really makes you wonder. Which is worse? Shopping at a store that pays their employees $7/hr and paying cash, or putting twice as much money on your credit card to shop at the "boutique" grocery store in Green Hills (a ritzy shopping area in Nashville).

It's these micro-micro-economics that we have to think about. Its the decisions in the things we buy every day that affect our personal economy more than anything else. Now, if every white-picket fence two and half kid perfect family shopped at Walmart, budgeted out their groceries each week and occasionally purchased the generic brand of a few items, perhaps we wouldn't see the consumer credit crunch like we do now. Obviously choices such as groceries won't keep you out of debt. But, get out your adding machine. How much is a box of Ritz crackers at, let's say, Fresh Market? We'll go with $4.59. Alright, now if you were to buy a box of "buttered cocktail crackers" or whatever the hell they're called at Walmart, Target or some other discount store, I could not see you wanting to pay more than $1.99 for the box. Now, we've saved almost 57% by making that small change.

Now, certainly, $2.60 doesn't seem like a monumental savings. But, we're talking about one item in your grocery cart that we've exchanged for a store brand alternative. Now, imagine doing that with 10-20-30% of your groceries. Imagine how much money you could save if you actually got the store brand orange juice from concentrate instead of the $7 gallon of Tropicana-came-from-the-orange-itself-they-just-squeezed-it-in-the-back-room that you always buy. Now, you might sacrifice a little bit of pulp, but if you look at the nutritional information you're almost not sacrificing anything at all.

It's those small choices we make that can make a huge difference in our own personal economies. So, next time you go out for some bread and milk, think twice before you buy the all-natural brand name product you just saw on a commercial during Desperate Housewives before you left the house. And then, when you rack up $4 or $5 in savings a week, you can go back to Starbucks and indulge in that frothy goodness you always lust.